Scarlet
by sweetdetection
Summary: One-shot, abstract. A spirit is confused as to why Dean and Sam are hunting her down. Told from the spirit's POV.


**Scarlet**

* * *

She saw the two girls, and she couldn't tell if they were far away or not. They were pretty, and slender, and they talked in the hushed tones of those who knew they were doing something that was frowned upon by most echelons of society, and she knew they did not want to be caught. But she'd caught them. She watched them and she _hated_ them, and she did not want them here. Not here. The secrets here were old, and mostly silent, and these girls and their whispers were too loud, and too vibrant, and too youthful. They walked toward her, and they didn't see her, and she couldn't control the building fury, and the world was beginning to darken around the edges. Her eyes focused on their feet -- one of them had bright red shoes on, and they were flat and looked like slippers, and the red swarmed her vision.

They laughed.

She began to feel alive as the red feet drew near.

And then they saw her.

They didn't laugh anymore.

* * *

She knew she was being hunted. She had never been hunted before, but somehow she knew somewhere deep in her mind that there were pursuers, and that they wanted to hurt her. It scared her, but it also made her angry. She couldn't remember doing anything wrong to anyone. The last thing she did remember was a girl with roses, textured like satin and colored like blood. She hadn't seen the girl leave.

She wondered if that girl was the reason that she was being hunted now. She couldn't understand why it might be so. She tried to remember, but all that came to mind were the roses, and they swam before her as she slipped from hiding place to hiding place, hoping to avoid detection.

They were persistent. But they were also loud. So long as she kept their noise behind her, she thought she'd be alright. There was no moon and so there was little light, and she was grateful. That the moon was hidden might be in her favor.

The roses in her mind pulsed, their red grew stronger and bled into the surrounding memory. She stopped, taking a moment to gather herself, to try and remember. It seemed important. Besides, the hunters were moving away from her now -- she could hear their noises retreating somewhere. Perhaps she'd fooled them.

She focused on the roses, and the girl who had carried them, and it occurred to her that the roses were bleeding into the girl's dress in her memory, but just at the chest. The rest of the picture was fading to a deep black and gray. Her mind's eye lingered on the crimson. And then it flooded her brain without warning, and she might have screamed, and she wasn't being hunted anymore.

She was hunting.

The shadows were all carmine. She followed them the way they had followed her, and she made them feel the fear that she had felt, and she stalked them with the same precision, the same deliberation. She wanted to know that they were sweating, that their hearts were beating erratically, that their blood was oxidizing as it sped through their veins, and that she could hear it. Her vision narrowed to a tunnel. It didn't matter.

She moved over the wet grass, and it hardly stirred beneath her as she swept over it. She neared them, and she could sense their heightened anxiety. She couldn't see them yet, but twin pounding filled her ears and she knew that they were aware of her, near and unseen.

She stalked closer. And then she stopped. Something was wrong. Her focus shattered and she looked down, and there were small flames and she realized that her dress was burning, and her feet. The embers were a deep, deep ruby, and she was confused -- they weren't the right color, those embers.

And then she wasn't standing in the cool, wet grass anymore. She was on her back, and there were flames leaping into the air, but the air was a long way up. She was in a pit, she could see the rough edges of the excavated ground rising around her. And she looked up with eyes that could not comprehend color, and she made out the shape of two men, standing at the rim of the pit. They looked down at her, and they were dirty and grim. She couldn't speak, or scream, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was burning. She wondered why she couldn't feel it.

"Rest in peace," said one, and his voice was quiet. The other one made a sound in his throat that was like disgust and added, "Bitch."

_Me? _She was confused. Why was she in a pit? Why was she burning? Who were these men, and why did they hate her? She could only remember flowers, red flowers…

She tried to scream.

No sound came out.

The night faded to burgundy.

* * *

They shoveled the dirt back into the grave. It was sweaty work. It took a long time. They didn't speak much. It was late and their task had tired them, and they had learned that it was better not to talk until the next morning. Somehow, it seemed disrespectful to speak again, now that the bones were covered for the final time.

The taller one ran a muddy hand through his hair and looked up. The night was dark, but he could make out the green of the grass, and the deep purple of the sky, and above him the stars stared coldly down, and he shivered. He used the spade to pat the earth back down over the grave as his companion shoveled the last pile on.

They looked at each other and picked up the salt and the lighter fluid. No more girls would disappear from here, and they knew it was because of them. No one would thank them. They didn't mind. They just wanted an uncomplicated exit -- that was the best they could hope for, these days. They walked out side by side after taking one last look at the headstone. Then they left Scarlet to her eternal slumber, and in the morning, when the sun put vibrant color back into the world, they would move on to the next town, and they would not look back.


End file.
